


Double Dates and Dramatic Reveals

by ama



Series: Philly Life [2]
Category: Band of Brothers, The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cuddling & Snuggling, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4677185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Babe and Ralph are friends. So when Babe is tired of being a fifth-wheel to Snafu, Gene, Bill, and Fran, of course he invites Ralph to join them--as a friend. Despite what the rest of their so-called friends might think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Dates and Dramatic Reveals

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what the hell happened with this, honestly, it wasn't supposed to be this long (story of my life). There are a few details that are mentioned briefly in the fic that I just want to clarify: Ralph was at one point a pre-med student, but decided to forgo med school and is in grad school at this point; Hinkle is some inside college joke of theirs still, make of it what you will; Bill is in a wheelchair because more disabled Bill and Joe in fic is a good thing. Oh, and although this does take place in the same verse as Flirting and Fire Alarms, it isn't necessary to read both to understand what's happening.

“I can’t friggin’ take it anymore,” Babe declared as he burst into the Spina household. He found all three of them in the kitchen and made a beeline for Ralph at the table, but was waylaid by Mrs. Spina, who grabbed his elbow and frowned down at him in a concerned way.

“Babe, are you alright, sweetie? You look so pale, like you’re sick—have you been eating?”

“Ma, you keep forgetting I’m Irish,” Babe said, bumping his cheek against hers in a semblance of a fond kiss. “I’m _supposed_ to be this pale.”

“Come on, sit down, eat something. We had risotto last night, there’s leftovers in the fridge.”

“Thanks, Ma, but I really _can’t_ ,” he whined as he fell into a chair at the table, where her two children were laughing at him. “I’m heading to Bill’s house in an hour and a half, and his mom and Fran’s are probably going to be there—”

“How many Italian mothers do you have?” Ralph asked in an amused voice.

“Just the three. Thanks,” he said again as Mrs. Spina set a plate in front of him, and he dug in gloomily.

“So how are the lovebirds?” Ralph asked after a brief pause, and Babe shot him a petulant look. He opened his mouth, paused, and then looked at Jenna, who looked quickly back at her summer math packet and pretended to not be listening.

“Jenna, go away.”

“Hey! I live here!”

“The grown-ups are talking, pipsqueak.”

Understandably, Jenna was no more disposed to listen to such a command at fourteen than she had been at eight, and she protested. Mrs. Spina, laughing and rolling her eyes, instead banished Babe and Ralph into Ralph’s room at the back of the apartment—although she didn’t do so without also providing them with two bottles of Coke (“it’s a hot day, you’ll get thirsty!”) and a sandwich bag of brownies (“just happened to have them, help me finish them before they go stale”).

“You better keep visiting them when I move out,” Ralph said warningly. “Or else they’ll kill me and then come for you.”

Babe flopped onto the bed waved his concerns away. He and Ralph had been friends for a long time. In fact, Ralph might rightly claim to be Babe’s oldest friend, beating out Bill by a mere three months. They had attended the same high school but been only vaguely aware of each other until May of their senior year, when they realized that they were the only two of their class going to their chosen college (they had met Bill that same year, when he was working freshman orientation and made good on his endless boasts that he could pick out a Philadelphian at a hundred paces). That fact, combined with his natural charm, meant that Babe was an honorary member of the Spina clan, and there was _very_ little that anyone could do to keep him out of their apartment for more than eight days—and even that was only on rare occasions, like when he was living in a different state.

“Have you found any new prospects yet?” he asked.

“Yeah, there’s a place near Clifton Heights—”

“What the fuck? Ralph, that’s _West_ Philly.”

“Babe, it’s still the same city.”

“No. Pick somewhere else.”

“Okay… there’s a bedroom in a shared space on McKean, but I’m not sure. It’s not accessible and it’s a completely sober building…”

Babe pulled a face.

“Good for them, not good for us.”

“You mean for me, Babe.”

“Yeah, right. Listen, do you want to hear the latest or not?”

Ralph stood and crowded Babe against the wall so he could recline on the bed, too, and opened his Coke with a dramatic hiss.

“Yep. Give me the scoop.”

“Okay so it’s their six month anniversary in two weeks, right? And you know Gene, he thinks month anniversaries are dumb, they’re not even technically _anniversaries_ , but—you’re not going to believe this—Snafu is taking him to New Orleans.”

“Jesus!”

“ _Right_? They’re going on a fucking three day road trip, each way, for their _six month_ anniversary and Gene is more excited than I’ve ever seen him, like literally ever. It’s _terrible_ but it’s also the sweetest thing in the world, you wouldn’t believe. And I’ve told you about the PDA, right?”

“I’ve seen the PDA with my own two eyes,” Ralph said, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe that. Four years we went to school with the guy and I don’t think I saw him so much as hold someone’s hand that entire time, and now...”

“Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. But anyway, the Louisiana trip is kind of expected, what with their whole exaggerated regional loyalty thing—”

“Babe,” Ralph protested, and then he began to shake with laughter. Babe grinned and poked his ribs.

“What? What, Ralph, are you trying to imply something?”

“Nothing,” he said, still chuckling. “Go on. What they’d do?”

“So I got home a couple of hours ago and Gene is just sitting down on the couch, right, and he’s got his phone in his hand and he tells Snafu that Bill’s good for tomorrow, so I ask oh do you guys have plans? Just, you know, making conversation, I honestly wasn’t trying to hint or anything—but then Gene looks guilty as all hell and he says yeah, he’s got a groupon for this tapas place so him and Snafu and some other people are going to go, and do I want to come? _Fuck yeah_ , I want to come, why would I turn down cheap tapas? But then I ask who else did he invite, and it was _just Fran and Bill_.”

There was a pause as that sunk in, and Babe moodily stuffed a brownie in his mouth. Then Ralph’s eyes widened.

“Oh shit,” he said. “You just got fifth-wheeled on a double date.”

“Yup. Because Gene thinks I’m the lonely pathetic single friend who would feel bad about being left out.” Ralph reached an arm around his shoulders and patted his arm sympathetically, and Babe cuddled closer. That was one of his favorite things about Ralph—he was an excellent cuddle buddy, compared to some of their other friends. Gene could only handle so much PDA in a given time period and Bill moved too much (and also had a tendency to say things like “Babe, you’re going to break my fucking wheelchair, move your fat ass,” the nerve of him). “Hey,” he said suddenly. “You should come, too.”

Ralph snorted.

“Oh, _thanks_ , Babe.”

“No, come on, I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean you should come out with us and eat tapas and drink sangria and make faces with me when the lovebirds do gross things. Because if there’s two of us, it officially makes it a group outing instead of a double date.”

Ralph hesitated.

“I don’t know, Babe… I mean, you could just bow out. Say you already had plans. Heck, you can just come over here if you want.”

“No, I think Gene would see through it. And see that’s the worst thing, I can’t complain about any of this because I know he feels bad about spending less time with me—but I’m not blaming him, really. I mean he’s head over heels for Snafu, and God knows he could use some time with a boyfriend who’s actually decent to him.”

“Mm… yeah, okay, I’ll come.”

“Thanks,” Babe said. He looked up and beamed and pressed a loud, smacking kiss to Ralph’s cheek. “You’re my favorite, you know that, right?”

“I fuckin’ better be, Heffron.”

—

Neither Snafu or Gene objected when Babe said he was bringing Ralph along—in fact, Snafu seemed rather amused, although he wouldn’t explain why, and Babe had not known him for nearly long enough to guess. Although he was, of course, happy that Gene had scored with his preferred Hot 4th Floor Guy, he still found Snafu a bit of a mystery. He liked cars, and rum, and Gene, and being sprawled out all the way across their couch—beyond that, who knew.

They met Bill and Fran at the restaurant, and Babe felt thoroughly justified in his decision to not bow out gracefully. The food was great, the wine was great, the company was great; so much so, in fact, that no one was surprised when dinner turned into dinner and a movie at Babe and Gene’s. It was decided during dessert, when Fran (a horror movie buff and film studies major) discovered that Snafu had never seen _The Sixth Sense_. When, in the course of the ensuing conversation, Gene admitted that he had never seen it either, that clinched the matter. It was #2 on Babe and Bill’s Top Philadelphia Movies (losing out only to _Rocky_ ), so they were watching it.

During the meal, Babe had almost forgotten that he was tagging along on a double date, but he was reminded of it when they reached the apartment; Bill and Fran sat on the couch, his arm around her shoulders and her legs thrown over his lap, and Gene and Snafu settled down in the armchair, which didn’t even have room for two people. Gene at least had the decency to look sheepish, but Snafu was unrepentant.

Babe, who had not had a romantic snuggle buddy for a solid five months, would have been feeling pretty low if Ralph weren’t there too, but as it was he was in a perfectly good mood—to the point where he couldn’t help making sound effects at all the proper dramatic moments.

“Will you shut up?” Ralph mumbled, and Babe grinned.

“Whattaya mean?”

Then he started squawking as Ralph poked him in a few strategic places, and he squirmed to get away but was firmly stuck.

“Stop it you _asshole_ —”

“Can we watch the movie or not?”

“Not if you keep tickling me!”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Snafu muttered under his breath. “You gonna say something?” he asked Gene, looking over his shoulder. Gene, tight-lipped, kept his eyes on the screen and shook his head.

“I’m going to,” Bill said with sudden determination, and he reached for the remote and paused the movie. Ralph released Babe guiltily.

“Sorry guys—”

“Yeah, we’ll be quiet.”

“It’s not that, Babe.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at Frannie. “How do we even say this?”

“I’ve got it.” Fran turned around, looking as serious and dignified as she could while essentially perched on her boyfriend’s lap, and Babe flashed Ralph a ‘what the hell is going on?’ look, which was returned with equal confusion. “Ralph, Babe, we all love you dearly, but if you don’t address the fact that you’re boyfriends soon, we’re going to kill you.”

There was a stunned ten seconds of silence, and then Babe laughed.

“What? We’re not—we’re not dating.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“No, we’re not. Are you serious? We’re friends, we have been for five years—and Jesus, Fran, you’ve known us almost that whole time!”

“Yes, and that’s why I’m totally confident in myself when I say that the two of you are pretty much wildly in love and need to get over yourselves. Everyone knows, Babe. I know, Bill and Gene and Joe know, Malarkey knows, hell, Snafu and his roommates know.”

“I figured it out in ’bout a week,” Snafu piped up.

“Even your _mom_ thought you two were dating, Babe,” Bill added.

“No, no, no, she thought I was dating Gene,” Babe corrected. They had laughed about it at the time.

“She thought you were dating your ‘roommate’ and she thought your ‘roommate’ was Ralph. Remember, she was really confused when you introduced him because she was expecting the wrong name.”

Babe was silent for a minute. He remembered the day he had introduced Gene to his mom. Thanksgiving, their junior year, when they had first moved into an apartment off campus. His mom had been a bit more confused than usual, he remembered now, but he had chalked that up to the fact that he had come out to her the night before on the phone, barged into the kitchen in the middle of the cooking frenzy, and tried to introduce her to about thirteen college-age boys all at once.

“It doesn’t matter what she thought,” Ralph said, interrupting Babe’s jumbled thoughts. “She was wrong, you’re wrong. We’re not—we’re not _secretly_ _dating_. Do you really think Babe could keep a secret that well?”

“We don’t think you’re keeping a secret,” Bill replied. “We just think you’re in a relationship already and you’re too fuckin’ stupid to notice it.”

“Bill,” Gene said warningly.

“I can’t take it anymore, Gene, I’m sorry. We’ve all heard the ‘let them figure it out’ speech but honestly at this point—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Babe demanded, and released a torrent of responses from Bill, Fran, and Snafu, who had apparently just been waiting for their cue. As he listened, Babe felt himself sinking back into the couch.

“You are incapable of watching The Avengers without commenting about how hot Mark Ruffalo is, and I’ve also heard you say Ralph looks like Mark Ruffalo at least twice.”

“You bought him like a crazy expensive box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. Like, yeah, you got me some too but they were not as nice as the ones you got Babe.”

“There’s also just the fact that you fucking invited him to crash double dates with you, like come on—”

“There was that one time we all went camping and halfway through the night Gene had to come share a tent with me and Toye because the two of you were spooning and leaving him to fucking freeze.”

“You’re basically looking for an apartment together right now, you know that, right? It’s not normal for a friend to have this much veto power in an apartment hunt.”

“I’ve known you for less than six months and I’ve walked in on you guys napping together, like, five times.”

“You text him easily twice as much as you text me, Babe, and we’re codependent as fuck so that’s saying something.”

“You were each other’s dates to every senior event in college. I wasn’t even Bill’s date to every single event!”

“Babe went on a date a few weeks ago and you spent the entire night moping on the couch, like I’m sorry but it was pathetic.”

“And then there was the party—” Fran began, and the volume in the room doubled as both Snafu and Bill began shouting and swearing, throwing their hands in the air.

“Okay, okay, settle down,” Gene said, speaking for the first time since the outburst had begun. “Come on guys, I think that’s enough—”

“No, it’s not,” Bill said grimly. “We’ve got to address the party.”

“What party?” Babe asked in a faint voice, mostly against his will. His cheeks were on fire and he couldn’t look Ralph in the eye—but he also couldn’t stop looking at him, periodically casting nervous glances at his right shoe to see how he was reacting to this slew of information. The right shoe was giving him nothing.

“The party in my apartment last month,” Snafu said. “Okay, it wasn’t a big party, there were like twelve people—anyway, the one where we all got drunk and decided we should play Truth or Dare. And I dared you to make out with someone in the room for—I think the time I gave was forty-five seconds.”

“Seven. Minutes,” Fran said in a completely deadpan voice. “You made out for _seven_ _minutes_.”

At that, both Ralph and Babe burst into speech.

“It was _not_ that long—”

“Definitely not seven—”

“I think it was—”

“More like a minute?”

“A minute and a half maybe—”

“Definitely not more than two minutes tops—”

“It was an uncomfortably long amount of time,” Gene muttered, and Babe glared at him.

“Traitor. Look, look, okay, that doesn’t mean—I mean, Jesus, guys, if making out with someone while I’m drunk counts as dating them, then my list of exes just got, like, _four_ _times_ longer than it was. I mean yeah we’re close, but—” He glanced at Ralph’s face for the first time and found him studiously inspecting the ceiling and, presumably, hoping that a meteor was about to crash through it and kill them all. “But that doesn’t mean…”

He trailed off and briefly forgot that anyone else was in the room. Ralph still wasn’t looking at him, and it struck Babe that something was wrong.

His heart sank, and instead something like anger rose in his chest. This wasn’t _fair_. Ralph was a good guy, everyone knew that, but he was also just a tiny bit prone to mope. It was natural, maybe, because so many of his friends were loud and friendly and admired—and Ralph loved them, but every once in a while he got to thinking about his short (in Babe’s mind, bizarrely so) romantic history, or his dismal MCATs, or the fact that he was still living with his mom, or his ( _delightfully_ ) chubby body type, or any other of those tiny little things that bugged him. And it was hard to notice these slumps and hard to get him out of them, but Babe was usually _really fucking good at it_. Being confronted like this, in front of people, was mildly embarrassing for Babe but probably mortifying for Ralph, and he was just the kind of person who would put some distance between himself and his friends rather than fuel gossip and more confrontations. And that pissed Babe off.

“You know what? Just, just shut up, okay? All of you. This is not cool, and if you had something to say than you could have said it one-on-one—but frankly it’s none of your fucking business.”

“Ralph—” Bill started to say, but Ralph cut him off.

“Yeah, that’s—that’s how I feel too. Can we just watch the movie, please? This is embarrassing.”

“Yes,” Gene said firmly. “Yeah, guys, that’s enough. You’ve said your bit, you’ve got it off your chest. Now just… let it go. Pas un mot,” he said swiftly as Snafu opened his mouth.

Snafu shrugged and leaned back against Gene’s chest again. Fran and Bill exchanged annoying exasperated looks. But without saying anything else, they hit play on the remote and watched as the movie resumed. Babe stared unseeingly at the screen. He and Ralph weren’t touching anymore, except for the sides of their legs, and the realization annoyed him. He knew it was deliberate; Ralph was keeping his arms crossed.

After a few minutes, Ralph stood and mumbled vaguely about the bathroom, not that that fooled anyone. He returned after maybe ten minutes, and the second he did, Babe attacked. He scooted his butt so he was sitting at an angle, leaned back against Ralph’s side, and ducked his head under his arm (almost colliding with Ralph’s chin). He didn’t say a word, but the firm set of his eyebrows spoke clearly enough: he wasn’t about to let their idiotic friends ruin a five-year tradition of having absolutely no personal space. There was one tense second, and then Ralph hugged Babe round the middle and leaned back against the couch. Babe smiled triumphantly.

—

The movie ended an hour later. Any awkwardness in the group as a whole had mostly dissipated—Babe and Bill had their own language for making up after a fight, while included a lot of nodding, raised and lowered eyebrows, “forgeddit”s, and gentle punches, and together they tended to set the tone of the room. Still, Bill and Fran said their goodbyes fairly quickly afterwards, pleading tiredness. Snafu declared himself too tired to even take the elevator two floors down, so he would be staying for the night. Gene grinned and pressed a subtle kiss to his neck (or at least he _tried_ to be subtle), and Babe flashed an exasperated glance at Ralph, who grimaced and stood.

“I better get back, too. If I’m too late I think my ma’ll meet me in the kitchen with a baseball bat. Night, guys.”

“Night,” Babe said cheerfully. He reached out and squeezed Ralph’s forearm, just to reassure him one more time that there was no harm done, and watched him out the door. He yawned. “Alright, guys, I think—”

He looked around at Snafu and Gene and stopped abruptly. Gene was looking at him expectantly.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you gonna go?”

“Go where?” Babe asked slowly, feeling like he was missing something, and Gene looked dumbfounded.

“Told ya he didn’t get it,” Snafu said triumphantly.

“Jesus _Christ_.” Gene pinched the bridge of his nose and drew his hand down his face, looking frustrated, even angry, in that terrifying way he sometimes did. “Babe, the man’s in love with you and just had that thrown in his face in the most embarrassing way possible, and you’re not even going to go after him? What the _hell_ is wrong with you?”

Babe’s jaw dropped.

“But—what—I thought we just—you were telling everyone to stop!”

“Yeah, because I’m the only one of your friends that’s not an asshole. That doesn’t mean they were wrong!”

“How do you know?” Babe demanded. His heart was fluttering wildly, because this felt uncomfortably real. It was easy—ish—to dismiss Bill, who often let his opinions cloud his judgement, and Fran, who didn’t know Ralph very well outside the group, and Snafu, who would say pretty much anything if he thought it would provoke a funny reaction. It was a lot harder to dismiss Gene.

And if Gene was right…. His heart progressed from “fluttering” to “convulsing.”

“Gee, Babe, I don’t know,” Gene said in a voice thick with sarcasm. (Snafu watched the conversation unfold with sheer delight.) “Do you want me to start _before_ or _after_ the time he came to my room one night and said ‘I think I’m in love with Babe’?”

His heart dropped like a stone.

“He said that?”

“Mm-hm.”

“When?”

“February before we graduated.”

“I… Why didn’t you _say_ anything? Why didn’t _he_ say anything?”

Gene facepalmed again, then stood, walked closer, and sat down so he could take Babe’s hand in his and look earnestly in his face.

“Babe. Have you _met_ Ralph? Do me a favor and imagine what he would do if he developed feelings for someone close to him. Someone who he thought was really attractive, who’s dated at least a dozen—no, more like two dozen more people than he has. Who never indicates any feelings back. What would he do, Babe?”

Ralph would keep his damn mouth shut, he thought uncomfortably.

“But why didn’t you say anything?” he repeated, his voice climbing higher. Gene sighed.

“Because he asked me not to, and I’m a good friend, and I sure as hell didn’t think it would take a year and a half, and an intervention, for you to notice.”

Babe stood up and began to pace. His mind was racing. How had he not noticed? If it was true—if it was really true, and he knew Ralph as well as he thought he did, how had he totally missed this? Everyone had always said he was good at reading people and he had thought so too, but… God, this must have been so hard for Ralph. Babe cringed at the thought; he hated to make anyone uncomfortable or upset, let alone one of his dearest friends.

“So what are you going to do?” Snafu asked lazily.

“I—I don’t know. Nothing tonight. It’d be too much.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I guess—”

“What are you going to say?”

“I’m not—I don’t—”

“Are you in love with him?”

The question was blunt, and it knocked everything into place before he even had a chance to think seriously about it.

“ _Obviously_.”

—

The next evening, having worked out an extensive plan of attack with Gene and an annoyingly smug Snafu, Babe knocked on the Spinas’ door. It was weird, knocking. He had his own friggin’ key. Normally he just barged in, occasionally pausing to rap on the doorframe while already halfway through. This time he waited for Ralph to open the door.

“Babe?” he said, genuinely puzzled.

“Hey. Do you mind—stepping out? Just real quick.”

“Okay,” Ralph said slowly. He stepped forward and closed the door behind him, folding his arms. “Is everything alright, Babe?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine, I just figured if I went inside I’d get a three-course meal and Jenna listening at doors or whatever. Which is fine, I mean I love your family, you know that, I just—had something I wanted to say first.”

He paused. And kept pausing. Ralph was watching him, waiting, very politely, and Babe was feeling a bit overwhelmed because he was so pretty. He was so patient and kind and funny and had such lovely doe-like big brown eyes… God, Babe was so royally fucked, and maybe if he had noticed this earlier he would be feeling less royally fucked right now, but he doubted it.

“Come on, Babe, what’s the matter? Hinkle got your tongue?” Ralph asked with a bit of a grin, and Babe snorted. He cleared his throat and launched into his piece.

“Okay, okay, so… about yesterday,” he said, and then fidgeted. “I mean, you know what I’m going to say, you were right, it was awkward and embarrassing and—and I felt bad that you had to deal with that, but… But then I started thinking about it, and… maybe they weren’t—entirely wrong.”

Ralph’s eyes widened.

“Um—”

“So I was thinking,” he said hastily, “maybe, you and me could go to Benny’s tonight? I could buy you a drink, and I think there’s karaoke tonight, and then after we can find a food cart or truck or something because I know you like street food…” He paused and then, bolstered by the surprised smile starting to emerge on Ralph’s face, pushed ahead. “And, I dunno, if it goes well then maybe we can go back to my place and try some non-platonic making out on the couch. Or whatever.”

“Are you serious?” Ralph asked after a moment, and Babe felt fireworks going off in his stomach. “Like—this isn’t a pity date or anything, you really mean it?”

“Hell yeah, I mean it. Listen, if I pity anyone, it’s me.”

Ralph laughed.

“Okay. Yeah, okay, sounds good to me. Just—wait here, give me a minute to grab my stuff, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Ralph retreated back into the apartment and shut the door behind him, and Babe took a moment to briefly indulge in his victory dance, which was cut short when the door opened again immediately afterwards and Jenna poked her head out.

“You’re a dork,” she declared.

“Oh, shut up,” Babe said sheepishly. She grinned at him and stepped forward to kiss him on the cheek; at fourteen she was actually taller than he was by a good inch, which was galling.

“Took you long enough,” she said. “If you waited any longer I think my mom was going to beat you up.”

“Did _everyone_ know but me?”

“ _Everyone_.”

“Everyone what?” Ralph asked, appearing at the door again, and Jenna smiled sweetly.

“Nothing. Enjoy your date.”

“Rotten kid,” Babe muttered, but he couldn’t really do anything to disguise the fact that he was grinning ear to ear, and Ralph elbowed him fondly as he walked past.

“Come on, let’s head out. If we’re going to do karaoke, I want time to get in a song or two before they call the cops on my screeching.” They walked a few feet down the hallway and then Ralph stopped. “But—um, first, can I—just—”

Babe waited for him to finish his sentence, but he never did. Instead, Ralph took his face in both hands and kissed him.

And… holy shit was it a kiss. Babe’s memory of the previous one was fuzzy, but he was fairly certain that it had been—well, sloppy, for lack of a better word, and this was anything but. It was sweet, and Ralph’s lips were really soft and his hands smelled like that honeydew lotion he liked, and Babe was about two seconds away from suggesting they skip the bar and the food and spend the entire date kissing on his couch when Ralph pulled away. He grinned and turned towards the end of the hallway again, holding Babe’s hand.

“Just that,” he said, partly shy, partly incredibly pleased with himself.

“Hey—” Babe mumbled, trying to remember how to speak. “No, hey, you can’t just leave me like that! You owe me six more minutes, buddy.”

“Nah,” Ralph said teasingly, but he let himself be tugged closer again. “Minute and a half, maybe. Two minutes, _tops_.”

 


End file.
